An intellectual struggle based on education is required to bring an end to terror

Many countries all over the world are affected by the scourge of terrorism more and more every single day.

The terrorist movements that became an international problem have ideological foundations. Some of those organizations such as the PKK, Shining Path and FARC are founded upon Marxist ideology; some of them, such as neo-Nazis, Chetniks or Golden Dawn are followers of extreme right-wing or fascist ideologies.

These organizations mostly attempt to create an independent state in a region under the rule of a sovereign country. And sometimes they are after annexing the lands of a country that they claim to have rights upon in another foreign country.

A majority of the terror organizations apart from those mentioned above have religious references. Organizations such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram are examples of such organizations. These organizations conduct their acts by making use of some superstitions, baseless prohibitions and punishment techniques that have infiltrated Islamic morality. They force people to live according to a radical understanding that has no place in the Qur'an, by using the name of Islam as they mistakenly perceive it to be.

Terrorist acts have intellectual foundations

No matter if they have ideological foundations or carry a radical mindset with religious references, all these organizations aim to make their own philosophies prevail by using violence. Even though they have different characteristics, all of them do have an intellectual substructure. All the terrorist acts they carry out are based on that intellectual foundation.

What is important here is the ideological training that enables the members of those organizations to legitimize their armed acts. That training is never delayed and is carried out step by step in different locations with different methods. Those trained youngsters start seeing people as animals and eventually they turn into cruel terrorists that can quite easily kill people in cold blood.

All the states are very much informed about these activities of the terrorist organizations. All the educational materials and methods are known by the intelligence services and by the security forces. However, while a struggle is carried out against these organizations, it is generally not an intellectual struggle that could annihilate this training system but a military struggle based on the use of weapons. It is possible to stop these militants before they turn into killers through precautions taken against the intellectual foundations of these organizations. Moreover, it would then be possible to prevent new recruitment to those organizations.

Ideologies can only be defeated with counter-ideologies

Well then, how could the intellectual foundation of terror organizations be brought down? It is impossible to annihilate an intellectual foundation with weapons. That is why it is an urgent necessity for the states to develop a method of responding ideologies with counter ideologies.

Fascism, communism, materialism, violence and terror form an inseparable whole. It is not possible to establish friendship and brotherhood between people simply through military methods without explaining that this ideology leading people to rebellion, to conflict and war, to dissension and lack of love, to selfishness and immorality is a colossal mistake. Members of such organizations- be they fascists or communists- regard life as a field of conflict and struggle. The reason for conflict is either difference of economic classes according to one group or it is difference between the races according to the other. For the members of organizations who see life as mere struggle, concepts such as family, religious morality, honor and pride lose their significance. Such people could follow all sorts of erratic ideologies and movements.

In order to stop terrorist movements with ideological foundations, youngsters should be taught about movements such as communism and fascism; however, the scientific counter-arguments should also be taught along with them. Intellectual struggle has never been tried or executed until today. A person who has been indoctrinated with materialistic education for years should be taught that communism and fascism are products of ignorance and lack of knowledge. It should be explained thoroughly that these are false beliefs lacking any foundation. The irrationality behind them should be unfurled. After proving that all these ideologies are false – and if they are properly told about the love of God - their commitment to those false ideologies would instantly come to an end. There would be no meaning to what they've been doing until then. Terror would no longer have any meaning for them. The mind of such a person would then be conquered. No terror organization could ever resist such an intellectual struggle via television and radios and the internet. A movement that loses its intellectual basis cannot survive. The states should either takeover this task or support non-governmental organizations that put themselves in for this task.

Education against organizations conducting terror acts in the name of Islam

A method similar to the intellectual method employed against terror organizations with ideological foundations could be employed against terror organizations that resort to violence misusing the name of Islam. However, because the basis of such organizations is different, the content of the intellectual struggle given should be different as well.

The basis of this intellectual struggle lies in strongly expressing the deviance in the thoughts of the members of such organizations. According to the Qur'an, it is a religious obligation for Muslims to call people to moral values of Islam only with kind words, not with force or compulsion. Calling these people to the True Path could only be possible by explaining that there is freedom of belief in Islam.

All Muslims should be taught that violence is not an acceptable method of expressing one's rights and that it is completely against Islamic moral values. They should be told that the morality of Islam cannot be espoused with terrorist activities and that such acts would harm Muslims even further as they would increase the number of enemies of Islam.

In the schools, students should be given courses that target the intellectual background of terrorist organizations; books and pieces written about this should be taught and conferences and academic meetings should be held. Only in this way would it be possible to wipe out terrorism from the face of this world. Such a method would also be instrumental in preventing the occurrence of terrorism in the first place.